


Lost in a Good Book

by kurage_hime



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Sudden Realization - Oh No They're Hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurage_hime/pseuds/kurage_hime
Summary: Bill doesn’t evenlikebooks. All that changes when she meets Alice in the library afterhours.





	Lost in a Good Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonster/gifts).



“You’re a librarian who doesn’t like books. How does that even _work_?”

“And you’re a regular patron who doesn’t come here to read,” Bill replied in between shallow intakes of breath through her mouth. If possible, she preferred not to breathe through her nose whenever Shaun was in close proximity. “How does _that_ work?”

Shaun merely proffered a one-shouldered shrug. They both knew damn well how it worked: Shaun was homeless, and he visited the Parkley County Public Library to use the restrooms – the toilet, mainly, and on occasion the sink and the hand soap dispenser (not that this helped much with the smell, unfortunately). He’d also been known to shoot up in the stalls, and although he’d never accidentally overdosed here, several of the other “regular patrons” had, and there was an emergency stash of Naloxone in one of the front circulation desk drawers.

In the six months since Bill had been offered this position at Parkley, she’d already had to treat opioid overdoses herself four times. Parkley County Public Library was also a de facto Addiction Crisis Center. This emphatically was not what she thought she was signing up for when she did her Master’s degree in Informatics – for as Shaun rightly noted, Bill’s interest was in the study and organization of _information_ , not books per se and certainly not _fiction_ – but times were hard, and this new job paid the rent and then some.

“We’re closing in ten,” Bill reminded Shaun, “and I have someplace I need to be at eight thirty, so…”

She didn’t, actually, unless a date with her sofa and Netflix counted, but she let the false implication hang in the air. Save for her and Shaun, the library was already empty. Once he was gone, she’d be able to lock up for the evening.

Shaun shrugged again and swiveled his body loosely in the direction of the EXIT sign. He knew better than to try to flirt with the likes of her anyway. “No problem. Oh! By the way…” He half-turned back to Bill and tossed a small, dog-eared paperback onto the circulation desk. “This was on the floor in the men’s.”

“Thank you for returning the book. I’ll see you tomorrow, Shaun,” Bill said firmly with her best Voice of Authority.

“Yep. See you tomorrow.”

 

Bill had to resist whipping out her hand sanitizer from a pocket in her skirt once she was alone. She hadn’t even _touched_ the grotty little paperback Shaun had found, yet it made her feel irrationally icky just looking at it.

The book in question definitely belonged to the library, though; it had a recognizable library binding and stickers, and it was one of those garish Japanese manga that the kids liked so much. She checked the library’s online database, and sure enough, it was there – _Pretty Princess Chrysanthemum Crisis_ Vol. 1 by Kei Natsuo – but it had been listed as “missing” (read: presumed “stolen,” a not infrequent occurrence) nearly two years ago.

The idea that it had been hiding out on the floor of the men’s restroom for the past two years beggared belief. Somebody’d probably just left it there in order to avoid the overdue fees, but whatever. It had returned home, safe and sound. Bill changed the book’s status in the database to “available” and headed into the stacks to shelve the book in its proper place at the far left of a long row of twenty-eight other _Pretty Princess Chrysanthemum Crisis_ volumes. Only the first volume appeared to have been missing. Now the series was complete again, and the kids would be able to binge-read or whatever it was they liked to do with comic books like these these days.

Well, that was something at least, Bill thought to herself. Parkley County Public Library had one of the largest collections of Japanese manga in the state because manga was popular, and popular books meant lots of patrons using the library for its intended purpose, and lots of patrons meant lots of public funding for more books, more paid work for librarians like Bill, and – Bill sighed – more free doses of Naloxone for the local addict population. It was public service in its myriad and most unexpected forms. It was—

“Hello.”

Bill’s jumped at the voice, her heart skipping a beat. But it was only a girl who looked to be of about high school age. “Hi there. The library is closing,” she said to the girl. “If you’re planning on checking out any books, you’ll need to go to—”

“I’m Alice,” the girl – _Alice_ – said.

“Um, okay, Alice,” Bill continued, not missing a beat, “but like I said, we’re closing, and I’m in a bit of a hurry to get home tonight, so—”

“What’s your name?”

 “I’m Bill.”

“ ‘Bill?’ That’s a funny name!”

“Oh yeah? You think so? Well, it’s short for Wilhelmina…and look, Alice, if you have questions, you really should come back tomorrow when—”

 _Pretty Princess Chrysanthemum Crisis_ Vol. 1 tumbled, seemingly of its own accord, off of the shelf and onto the floor at Bill’s feet, and Bill stooped to pick it up and put it back where it belonged.

In the meantime, though, Alice had disappeared.

 

Although Bill had been mildly taken aback by Alice’s mysterious disappearance the night before, she wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see her again the next evening…right when she was getting ready to close the library for the night, of course.

“So, why is your name ‘Bill?’ Did your parents give you that name?”

Alice really was a nonstop stream of increasingly personal questions. How irksome!

“My full name is Wilhelmina Murray, but ‘Wilhelmina’ is a mouthful, so everybody called me ‘Mina’ when I was a kid,” Bill explained as she wrapped up the last of the day’s mountain of requisitions paperwork. She was running late; it was already officially afterhours. But she’d be laid out on her sofa and binge-watching another Scandi crime drama series soon enough, she reminded herself silently. “But at a certain point during my teen years, sharing a name with the Bride of Dracula or whatever she was ceased to be appealing. Also, I’d come out as a lesbian. I started telling people to call me ‘Bill,’ and now I share a name with a famous actor-comedian instead.”

“Oh, I see! My mom named me ‘Alice’ after Alice in Wonderland. She’s not my _real_ mom, though,” Alice clarified in a hushed tone, like she were divulging some great secret of the universe. “She actually found me in a chrysanthemum flower.”

Bill looked up at Alice, squinting, her brow furrowed. Alice was short and slender, with straight, raven-black hair in a loose, silken fall past her waist that made her look very young. Initially, she’d mistaken Alice for a teenager, but Alice had disabused her of that misapprehension today – and so Bill knew she was much, _much_ too old to believe in such fanciful stork-delivery-style origin stories. “I see…” Bill said slowly, neutrally. Really, she ought to have realized right from the start. If not homeless drug addicts like Shaun, why not the mentally ill too?

“I’m a reincarnated princess.”

“Uh huh.” _Don’t provoke her, Bill, don’t provoke her!_

“I just wish I knew how my story ended.”

“Yeah, well, don’t we all?” Bill sighed as she placed the last inventory form onto the pile and rose from the desk. “Look, I really need to get home and feed the cat.” Bill didn’t have a cat – her allergies were prohibitive – but she figured it was a harmless lie. “C’mon, maybe you ought to be getting on home as well…?”

“Nah, I’m already home,” Alice said.

This time, Bill actually _saw_ her disappear into thin air.

 

She wasn’t a stupid woman. By the time Alice appeared for the third evening straight right around closing time, Bill had it figured out:

Alice was the titular heroine of the _Pretty Princess Chrysanthemum Crisis_ manga (called “Kurisakuri” by its die-hard fans, or so the ultimate authority of the internet hive mind had informed Bill).

She was fictional. A freakin’ cartoon character.

As for why she’d only started appearing _now_? Reuniting that first volume with the rest of her series run must have awakened her or something. And as for why she’d only started appearing _for Bill_? Well, Bill wasn’t quite sure about the reasons for that, but she didn’t object overmuch, since Alice was indeed very pretty for someone who wasn’t real. And she was an interesting conversationalist. Also, she smelled a whole heck of a lot better than Shaun!

But. Fictional. Cartoon. And Bill didn’t even freakin’ like books.

“—and I am the reincarnation of a princess who lived over 31,000 years ago,” Alice was saying. “My family ruled the twin kingdoms of the sea and the sky. But an evil witch of the underworld was jealous of our dominion over nature and wanted our powers for herself. A great war was fought, and the witch was winning.”

“Uh huh,” Bill mumbled, grunting as she stacked boxes of books destined for the next spring library sale. One more…and…oof…argh…! Did she pull a muscle in her back…?!

“In order to protect the planet from annihilation,” Alice continued, placing a gentle hand on Bill’s back, her warm touch making the pain dissipate instantly, “my soul was cleaved from my body and placed into a stasis of magical sleep. I would revive only when humanity faced its final, darkest hour!”

So, she was magical too? Why yes, yes, she was. Okay, that was handy (literally) and mighty nice. If only Alice would show up when Billy _wasn’t_ quite so eager to get home and crash in front of the television!

“I only wish I knew how my story ended!” Alice concluded, oblivious to – or perhaps choosing to ignore – Bill’s impatience.

“Uh huh.”

“If I did, I think I’d be able to move on and start a new life as an ordinary human being. Until then, I can’t leave this library.”

“Uh huh.”

Alice did say things that that effect quite a lot. Vaguely, Bill wondered if there was something to it. Oh, whatever. She was tired. Her sofa was singing its siren song. Maybe she’d give this some serious thought tomorrow when she was fresh.

 

The library’s database had been incorrect, as it turned out. _Pretty Princess Chrysanthemum Crisis_ was _not_ actually complete at twenty-nine volumes. The series had been abruptly canceled in Japan after Kei Natsuo had fallen ill from overwork, and the series’ American publisher had gone out of business shortly afterwards. Although Natsuo had eventually made a full recovery and resumed Kurisakuri after a seven year hiatus, the remaining “triumphant” (according to the internet) ten volumes had gone unlicensed…

…until last year, when a new publisher had purchased the rights to the entire thirty-nine volume run and published them with a new translation in thirteen 3-in-1 volume omnibus editions.

Bill bought omnibus volumes 11-13 off Amazon and donated them to the Parkley County Public Library herself.

Alice’s teary-eyed, emotional response to Bill’s generosity at closing time that night was…remarkable. Could a cartoon character be hot? Whoops! Seemed so! And her kiss wasn’t half-bad either.

 

Soon enough, Bill had forgotten that she didn’t like books. Alice was exceedingly skilled at changing her point of view on such matters.

 

“Hey Bill! Long time no see! How have you been doing?”

It was Shaun, and it _had_ been a long time since Bill had seen (and smelled) him last – since before she’d quit her job at the library, she reckoned. He looked (and smelled) exactly the same as she remembered, though.

“I’ve been well,” Bill replied, smiling. It seemed the old adage was true: Absence made the heart grow fonder, _especially_ now that she was no longer the one manning the front circulation desk or administering the emergency doses of Naloxone.

“What’s this I see? Are _you_ – Bill Murray – checking out books from the library? What’s gotten into you? I thought you didn’t like books!”

Bill shrugged as she slid her library card back into a dedicated pocket of her wallet. “Things change.”

Shaun eyed the platinum wedding ring on Bill’s finger. He understood the significance. “Clearly they do. Have you been doing anything besides getting hitched?”

Bill shrugged again. “Oh, not much.” No, not much at all…besides putting the finishing touches on her first novel, about a magical princess who was trapped in a library until she was rescued by a heroic librarian who figured out how to liberate her. The project was already under contract, and she had a deadline to meet. She still had the final chapter left to write. “Just getting lost in some good books, I suppose.”

Alice was grinning and waving at them through the window. She was waiting for Bill outside. Truth be told, she didn’t like coming into the library when she didn’t have to, which Bill felt was completely understandable.

Shaun’s eyebrows rose practically to the top of his head at the sight of the pretty Alice and her matching platinum wedding band. “Nice,” he mumbled. “I woulda thought people like that only existed in storybooks.”

“I’ve become quite the book lover, I’ll have you know,” Bill told Shaun conspiratorially. “I’m especially fond of the ones with happy endings.”


End file.
